


and come tomorrow, i’ll be gone

by Amalockh (taffeta)



Category: Tales from the Crypt - Fandom, Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight (1995)
Genre: Existentialism, F/M, God is unofficially a character in this I suppose, Infatuation, Jeryline doubting her role as the new Demon Knight, More tags to be added as time goes, Multi, Religious Discussion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Suicidal Ideation, The Collector is absolutely obsessed with Jeryline, The collector gives Jeryline pet names, The original collector survives au, This is not a good thing, Unhealthy Relationships, mentions of God - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27201829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taffeta/pseuds/Amalockh
Summary: Jeryline hits the road after the slaughter in New Mexico, traversing one small town after another in an attempt to keep the key from falling into the clutches of demons for as long as she possibly can; and with The Collector hot on her heels at every single turn, this presents a difficult challenge.Doubly so, when the creature after Jeryline's head also harbors a bizarre, unwavering fascination with her.
Relationships: Frank Brayker/The Collector (hinted), Jeryline/Frank Brayker, Jeryline/The Collector
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	and come tomorrow, i’ll be gone

**Author's Note:**

> This work will be updated every week on Fridays! More tags and warnings to be added as the story progresses; depending on sexual content, may be updated to an explicit work

Before Jeryline’s Divine Intervention and discovery of a higher power—many higher powers, actually, most of them keen on destroying the planet—dust gathered at the bottom of her bank account. Paying her bail to the pigs over at the Pima County Sheriff’s Department had seen to most of her cash, and then the little fees here and there, like an overdraft charge, or maybe something from the commissary during her stint in prison made sure to scoop the rest. Before that night, Jeryline was running on fumes, cents and a handful of dollars, really, and no amount of scrubbing toilets or preparing meals for the scant guests that came their way could improve her pathetic financial situation.

Not now, though. Her life had taken such a drastic, sudden curveball in the past few days, and the broke, moneyless, and financially stretched thin Jeryline, prisoner to the state Jeryline, an indentured servant to a shitty little hotel Jeryline, was a thing of the past. Here she was, sitting in a car and looking out across the desert landscape of a different state, as the new savior of mankind. What a surprise. 

Windows down, rolling at seventy miles an hour in a deep green Toyota 4-Runner that wasn’t much older than three, a smidge over five-thousand miles tacked onto its odometer, she stuck her elbow out of the car and stretched her fingers against the whipping wind. It wasn't a brand new car, no, but one that seemed sturdy and reliable when she laid her eyes on it in the lot, one that would last her for the incoming years of doing exactly this—running. 

Jeryline snubbed the cigarette on the side of the truck, and the butt was snatched from her fingertips by the strong breeze. West Arizona was a land of nothing more than dying small towns, and scorching heat and the blacktop roads just seemed to go on forever, long stretches of solitude consisting of where it was just her and the car and the key for companionship. Thank god she’d thought to pick up sunglasses before the trip began. 

The pavement on this stretch was uneven and cracked, without maintenance for years, and the key dangling around her neck smacked against Jeryline’s chest whenever she drove into the bumps. 

The relic was tied to her by a knotted string of chord, its tip wrapped by wire, and this time, she looked down at it. Her hand gripped the item softly, and she ran her fingers across the grooves, across the creation of a celestial being whose name she likely couldn’t even pronounce with her human tongue. The only thing standing in between Earth and its destruction, and she didn’t even know what it was made of, or where it had come from, really, besides Brayker’s broad answer of “God did it”. Had God himself made this?

Ahead of Jeryline, the road stretched through the horizon, and the only things to keep her company were the cacti that grew twice as tall as her. No one else was driving on this stretch, of tumbleweeds and sand, whipped up suddenly by the blowing wind outside. Jeryline watched a vulture swoop down behind a nearby small rock formation, something wriggling in its claws as it rose into the sky. 

“Only this,” she said softly, unable to keep out the hint of awe in her own voice. The task ahead suddenly seemed insurmountable, one where she knew the outcome would not be in her favor. Jeryline blinked slowly to regain control of herself. The road wavered and swerved, and she veered into the other lane very slightly before righting herself again. 

“Only you and me, kid. You and me against the world.”

The blood that showed through the glass sparkled in the beating sun of Texas.  
\---  
When all was said and done—the demons vanquished, The Collector swept back into the pits of Hell, Brayker sitting there dead in a pool of his own blood after she’d harvested it from him--Jeryline hadn’t taken her leave immediately. 

No, what she’d done first was to weep herself into a stupor on the cold floor of that abandoned swimming pool, cried until the sobs dried up into hiccups, and then gathered herself. Started towards the upper floors of the church on legs made of sticks, and a headache that beat at the walls of her skull, still wielding the key in her outstretched, shaking hands, waiting for any dark forces that hadn’t gotten the memo that they’d been vanquished. 

Shortly after that, with the psychic, magical hold on the church lifted away, the power turned back on; the generator started its humming, and the warm light made the stained glass window look extra beautiful when she’d first began to look through the pockets of her dead companions. _Friends_ was too personal of a word, and _strangers _simply wasn’t true.__

____

____

Whether she would admit it or not, they’d all faced a traumatic event that was unprecedented for (most of) humankind; and, like any group of strangers who’d gone through hell and high water together, it left them all in a strange class of being.

Sure, these people weren’t exactly her friends. But that didn’t stop her from weeping over them softly as she combed through their dead bodies for whatever money she could get, in anticipation of the monumental task ahead. 

In the end, it had been Miss Irene and Brayker, naturally, who’d given her the most. Cordelia had a few hundreds in her pocket, Wally even less than that, and she couldn’t find enough of Roach’s remains to even think about trying to scavenge from him. 

Irene had a couple of bucks in the register, but it was her safe upstairs that contained the real jackpot; not above lock picking (and not above anything, anymore, after what had happened the night prior), Jeryline found the safe underneath Irene’s mattress, broke it open to reveal a whopping ten-thousand dollars stuffed in wads, and by then she had ceased her crying and was in full work mode. Jeryline pocketed the cash, scrubbed herself down in the shower near her living quarters, and made off with Cordelia’s car that had been stashed away behind the hotel. She’d left the vehicle somewhere in a ditch nearby downtown, and hiked the rest of the way to the car dealership, the money tucked safely away in her backpack, along with a change of clothes, and a handgun picked off one of the bodies. 

It was the end of her first day on the road, and Jeryline had gotten as far as the outskirts of Arizona, only ten miles away according to a chipper road advertisement, before her eyes were too heavy to see the gravel, and the need to sleep weighed heavy enough on her shoulders to make her slump in her seat. 

Jeryline pulled the truck to the side of the road, where the sand and weeds crunched beneath the tires; there was an enormous patch of what she thought what cacti (though it reminded her a bit of aloe Vera plants, though bluer than usual) and she eased on the gas, settled her vehicle behind the giant plants as a weak form of protection. The car blended well with the green-blue of the plants, though she doubted that anyone would be out here, in the middle of the desert, looking for a woman that had been presumed dead in what New Mexico authorities were calling the “La Mesa Church Massacre”. Why they’d presumed her dead, she’d never know; perhaps they’d found her bloodied clothes up there in the attic with Brayker’s dead body and assumed the worst. 

It shocked her to hear her own name rattled off on the radio as the news broke, filled her chest with an emotion that bordered on terror, relief, and a twinge of anger when they described her as “a twenty-three-year-old convict”. As if convict was her permanent state of being, a descriptor that could be used interchangeably with the color of her eyes or her hair type. Either way, what was it that grandma used to tell her? “Don’t put a question mark where God put a period.”

Jeryline snorted, shifting the gear into park and flicking the vehicle off. The hum of the engine faded into complete silence; and, without really thinking of it, she grabbed at the key once more. Perhaps for comfort, to make sure it still existed there, with her. 

She settled deeper into the front seat, taking one cursory look over her shoulder. Nothing; no man in a hat, stalking closer and closer in the rearview mirror. Nothing but the full moon. Jeryline shifted, wrapping her arms over her legs, resting her chin on her knees, listening to the nothingness of the desert, and staring at the plants in front of her windshield. She wanted to go home, though there was no home to go back to. God help her, what she’d give to hear Miss Irene’s voice, bellowing at her throughout the hallways to get it in gear, missing their back and forth during Jeryline’s shift that always ended with Miss Irene slipping a few bucks in her pocket for the road; what she’d give to shoot the shit with Cordelia, the two of them giggling about Cordelia’s new man friend, while Wally watched from the sidelines like a faithful pup. Hell, she’d even take a sip from Uncle Willy’s flask, though the liquor burned like a motherfucker and was probably made up of kerosene and rubbing alcohol. 

She thought of these people, all the quips and jokes they’d shared beforehand, and then Jeryline’s memories cut to the aftermath, looting their dead burned bodies for money and having to peel Cordelia’s clawed arm away from her pocket to get the cash—and she threw her hands over her ears to shut them out quickly. 

“Does it ever get any easier?” She asked, gritting her teeth to will the tears away, “god damn it, doesn’t it get easier?”

No one would hear her question besides the dirt and tumbleweeds, or maybe the coyotes who prowled the area searching for food, when a hum started in her ears. Jeryline rubbed at her temples, groaning, exhausted from the day’s drive. Should’ve picked up a couple of aspirin for the ride. The pain shot through her head, nearly doubling her over in sudden agony, and as soon as she shot up, ready to search through the glove compartment for something she knew she didn’t have, he finally spoke to her. 

‘ _Easier? No._ ’ The voice, so close to her now, made her sit up straight. He’s back, he’s back, she thought frantically, and a high gasp escaped her throat, ‘ _but I suppose it gets more doable over time._ ’

Hand still steadying her beating heart, Jeryline listened, breathing deep. That wasn’t him. Not the demon that offered her the world on a platter. She raised her hand to her mouth, suddenly afraid to speak. 

“I—” she sputtered, unsure of what to say next, her sentence bordering on the intersection of ‘I’m so happy you’re here”, and “I hate you, you goddamn bastard, for doing this to me’, “Brayker? Brayker, is that you?” 

‘ _In the flesh_ ’, he said. Chuckled to himself at his own joke, ‘ _sort-of._ ’ 

Jeryline forced in a deep inhale, holding the key in her fingers so tightly that it left indents in her hands. A strangled noise, a sound at the intersection of a sob and a groan, escaped her slightly open lips, and the buzzing in her ears, like a faulty radio signal, continued, though Brayker was silent.

It occurred to her that perhaps he was waiting on her to speak, but this sudden re-emergence of a good friend, short-lived mentor and perhaps the only person on a planet of billions to understand what she was going through, left her near speechless. What was there to say, even? Thanks for saddling me with this burden, asshole; wish you were here with me. 

In the end, she settled with the safe but stupid-sounding, “But I…I thought you were dead. I had to, you know,” Jeryline coughed into her fingers, mildly embarrassed, “harvest you.”

‘ _I_ am _dead._ ’ Brayker said, so close that he sounded as if he were in the passenger’s seat of Jeryline’s car (a cursory check assured her that he wasn’t; the only thing back there were the few things she took with her for the trip that would only end when it was her time to die). There was another beat of silence, and then her ears filled with his voice. 

‘ _And you did what you had to do._ ´he reassured her softly, ' _What all of us had to do—and, what someday, someone will have to do to you, too._ ' 

She thought of the poor idiot that would come after her, carefully trying, as she did all of those weeks ago in New Mexico, not to spill the remaining essence of her onto the floor below. 

Jeryline had failed that first task; though she’d managed to herd more than enough into the key-bottle, a disgustingly massive amount of Brayker’s blood coated her fingers afterward, and as the wound went from a gush to a slow seepage of blood as the last of his essence spilled, only then did she get the idea to cover herself in the excess, and stage a counterattack on The Collector. She’d been gambling on the idea that a hunter’s blood was toxic to demons only _following_ death, but for safety, she’d unscrewed the key and rubbed one last layer on her body, before refilling it with the last of his blood. 

The thought of it—of her, more specifically, being covered head to heel in the blood of another human being made her shiver in revulsion. Outside, a coyote howled, far away, and lonesome. Jeryline curled in on herself, trying to generate some warmth without having to rely on the car battery, wrapping her arms around her knees. 

“I wish you would have given it to someone else, Brayker,” she admitted, for there was nothing, nothing else in the world Jeryline wanted more than a change of clothes, a warm bed to sleep in, and to rest without the sense of an impending, omnipresent sense of doom that followed her constantly like a breathing shadow. “Maybe Cordelia would’ve been a better hunter. She was good under pressure. Hell, even Roach, the low-life traitor he was, would probably be used to a life like this.” 

She gestured wildly around her, at the car, the desert, the enormous cactus that sheltered her car from any prying eyes unless they were specifically looking for the make and model of her getaway, still torn in feeling vehemently furious at Brayker for leaving her like this, and relieved that at least someone—disembodied voice or not—could understand.

“I’m not—I’m not made for this!” Jeryline admitted aloud, the thought punctuated by the howl of another coyote somewhere distant enough from her, “I’m just some _nobody_ who got caught stealing! There has to be someone else, I don’t know, someone more worthy than me to do this!”

Of course she couldn’t see him, but Jeryline practically felt the displaced air around her as Brayker shook his head. ' _You were chosen, Jerry. You are the worthy one, and, believe me, it brings me no pleasure to tell you that._ '

' _It’s a difficult existence, Jeryline, but sometimes it can get a bit more tolerable, especially when you can lose The Collector for long periods of time. We once didn’t see each other for ten years, a whole decade that I lived in relative peace. Turns out he’s not that good in navigating the Italian countryside,_ ' Brayker laughed, undoubtedly lost somewhere in those memories, _'but, I have to warn you. With the way the last one acted around you, I’d say you need to be more cautious than usual._ '

At this, Jeryline planted her feet firmly on the car floor, sitting up. 

“He’s back? But I thought I sent him back to Hell!” She pounded her fist on the dashboard, "you’re telling me that it was all just, what, a light show?”

' _No, no, I’m not saying that at all. I haven’t heard of Collectors coming back in the same form, but I can’t say that it’s not...completely out of the question. These things are dangerous, keep in mind. Creatures completely out of our understanding, of what we know in the world. You need to be careful, Jeryline. You—_ '

“—hold the last key standing in between Earth and its absolute destruction,” she finished, rolling her eyes lightly, “yeah. Please don’t remind me, Brayker.”

In her mind, he sighed. She wondered what sort of realm he occupied now, and how she should’ve asked him that earlier. Ah, well. There was always tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that, and perhaps years after that, if she managed to elude The Collector for that long. 

' _It’s always important to keep that in the back of your mind, too. Of course, you’ll have some help from me, and the knowledge given from the other Demon Knights, and even Him, from time to time, but at the end of the day, it’s only you._

“Him?” Jeryline asked, “you mean—“

 _'Mhm._ ' 

_Then why doesn’t He just take this stupid thing?_ She thought, tugging at the key chained around her neck, and immediately thought better of it. Probably best not to commit blasphemy when God just might be the only thing standing between her and a realm full of demons.

"Well, I hope you’re right. Suppose I’m gonna need all the help I can get.” With that, Jeryline curled back up into a ball in the front seat, resting her head on the less-than-comfortable seat, and reached for a button on the side of the chair so it would recline, “hate to break our sudden reunion short, Brayker, but it’s kind of been a long day of running from a fate I can’t possibly escape, so if you don’t mind...”

' _Of course._ ' He said, and then fell quiet, and Jeryline was left with herself, and the heavy moon in the sky. She would get a move on sooner rather than later, likely within the next few hours before the sun rose. She wanted to get as much distance as possible until the next one, the next Collector would begin their chase. She wanted to cry, too, but the tears simply refused to fall. In their place was a broiling hot, all-consuming rage at what was now being expected of her, and she spent the last few minutes of consciousness gripping the key, the source of all her troubles, and wondering what was the worst thing, the possible worst thing, that could happen if she gave it up to those who sought it before she slipped into an uneasy sleep.

' _Night, Jeryline._ ' Brayker said in her head, but at that point, the dark rushed in and stole whatever response had been in her throat.


End file.
